Melona
Melona (メローナ Alternatively called Merona or Mellowna) is one of the three servants of the Swamp Witch and is a recurring character in the Queen's Blade franchise and was designed by F.S.. In the anime adaptation and PSP game, she is voiced by Rie Kugimiya in the Japanese version and Lisa Ortiz in the English dub. Character Overview Melona first appears in the franchise with her own artbook, detailing her to be a versatile character. She is a shapeshifter who can change the shape of her body freely and instantly. She is skilled in obtaining information and assassination. It is assumed that she was ordered to bring about chaos to the Queen's Blade tournament. Appearance Compared to other Queen's Blade contestants, Melona sticks out like a sore thumb. Her body is soft, moist, and jiggly, but when necessary it can harden immediately to aid in attacking or defending. Of course, even then, Melona might copy the design of a master craftsman, or create a weapon that is exactly the same shape as her opponents. Details such as these are important to her. Though an amorphous being, her most commonly seen form is that of a well-endowed woman with a pink hue on her skin (in the anime, she is given a luminescent glow), a lithe physique and blue eyes with clover-shaped pupils. She has long pink hair that reaches past her shoulders, featuring a pair of bunny ears. She is scantly-clad, wearing only a very small pink transparent jacket that only covers her shoulders featuring eye-like pauldrons and a collar bound by a heart-shaped emblem with wings and a pink dress. She wears an equally revealing blouse of the same color and density and wears a pair of pink shoes with a pair of eyes. The bangs of her hair that frame her face form into a pair of hands that cover her otherwise fully-exposed breasts. In a recent promotional image for Queen's Blade Rebellion, Melona has had an outfit change. She has changed her jacket into a form-fitting gown with dark highlights and the heart-shaped emblem on the collar has changed into a larger butterfly decoration, although barely any of it covers any part of her torso. She has however adopted layered gel-like sleeves with black bows and a pair of sandals as well. Personality She is childish and likes to play malicious tricks. She can be very condescending. Even during an assignment, she would rather do surprising instead of something effective. Melona is a chilling monster beyond human imagination, depicted as a manipulative character with a sadistic disposition. Seductive and alluring, she revels in humiliating her opponents and will not hesitate to motion to rape or kill them if given an opportune moment. Despite her malevolent nature, she does not like being called a monster. Special Abilities Melona's abilities on the battlefield match her personality. Melona is entirely composed of a pink-colored metamorphic slime that can take on any shape desired. This allows her to sneak about and escape from danger. Her mimicry appears to be almost absolute as her shapeshifting is not limited to shape or texture, and she uses this power to full effect to confuse her opponents. She can also not just shapeshift in a person's body, but their clothes, weapons, and armor, as well. She can also imitate the techniques of the person she has shape changed into- although not as powerful. For example, as Tomoe, Melona used Tomoe's "Warrior Priestess Kick" as a combat move in a fight. During her transformations, Melona retains her powerful breast milk ability, as well as her amorphous quality. She also retains the same strangely shaped pupil, although the eye color does change. She can also form genuine weapons from her mass. Most often, Melona's sword is an extension of her goo arms simply wrapped around one of her real arms, keeping the weapon secure. The weapon keeps the same pink hue that accents her goo hands, and at the base of the sword is an emblem resembling the one attached to the top of her jacket. Her amorphous constitution affords her a myriad of other benefits, among them are primarily a swordsmanship all her own as the limitations of the human physique are null in her case and an immunity to physical attacks which she may easily counter if struck. She also has the ability to take in flesh of small organisms around her, increasing her body strength indefinitely. Eventually, she could become an invincible existence. Melona's other main ability is her breast milk, which she uses extensively. By using the goo arms on her breasts, Melona's breasts expand and she fires the milk directly from her nipples by squeezing - the milk that comes out has varying properties. When fired in sprays, it acts as a fast-acting corrosive agent that burns through clothing and other non-organic matter (such as buildings and weapons). This is used to disorient and humiliate her opponents as the corrosive is otherwise harmless to their body. When fired in bursts like bullets, they act as high-velocity explosives. Despite these frightening abilities, Melona is not without her weaknesses. It is possible to temporarily disable her by landing a very powerful attack on her, and during the time period, one can snatch away her mass, diminishing her size and power until she becomes miniscule, forcing her into retreat until she can regenerate her slime back. Melona's milk can also be blocked before its fired, (Leina does this in episode one of the queen's blade anime), causing her to implode with explosive results, though this is rather risky. Melona, generally before attacking, smiles, which then turns into a viciously wide grin where her eyes shine in a yellow light. She seems to have an alternate power when using this ability, to paralyze opponents. Using this, she paralyzed Tomoe in the fight against the Giant Snake. Melona has a highly-developed sense of smell, to the point where she can recognize an individual by scent. In her first meeting with Leina, after the latter had run away from home, Melona initially mistook her for Claudette since Leina had Claudette's scent on her. Synopsis In the anime adaptation, Melona appears in the first episode battling the main protagonist, Leina Vance. She nearly kills her but Leina's ally, Risty, ambushes Melona, forcing her to retreat. She later appears spying on Leina and her sister, Elina before finally making her move to attack just as the warrior sets out with her new armor. Causing havoc with her breast milk, she lays ruin to a good portion of the castle and fights Leina. Knowing that regular physical attacks won't work, Leina devises for an alternate method; she coaxes Melona into an anger fit before throwing her sword at her feet, causing the ground to split apart and disrupting her balance as her goo hands reflexively squeeze her breasts, harmlessly showering herself with her own milk. Taking this chance, Leina immediately glomps Melona, squeezing her breasts against her armor which blocks the flow of her milk and causing them to expand, exploding violently upon reaching an excessive bust size. Melona isn't seen again for a while until she reforms and reappears in the fifth episode where she attempts to take Leina, who is being held by her fellow Swamp Witch servant, Menace, but her advance is rejected with a threat and leaves again for a while. Melona appears once more in a filler episode where she, Menace and another Swamp Witch servant, Airi are seen in the nether regions bathing together, but are ambushed and defeated by the half angel, Nanael. Melona appears in the season finale as most of the Queen's Blade contestants appear gather for one epic battle as Leina and various allies do battle with the Swamp Witch's servants. Melona battles Leina by herself, constantly shifting into the Leina's allies and relatives to throw her off, but is assisted by a few other allies to help Leina. When the battle comes to a head after being bifurcated by Tomoe, she reforms as Leina as she gets her second wind. Although she is able to push her into a corner, Leina makes a comeback and unleashes the 'Dragon Tail' attack, defeating her as she collapses into a purely liquid state. Reforming and backed into a corner, she takes drastic measures and summons a giant naga creature wielding a shield and sword (the shield containing Melona's face). The creature is able to push back the other contestants and before the battle can end, it is abruptly destroyed by a mysterious power, deemed to be against the rules. Melona appears once more in the first episode of the second season. Frustrated by her failures to defeat the human contestants, she takes it upon herself to immediately challenge the current Queen's Blade champion, Aldra, to battle. Though gaining the upper head thanks to her regenerative capabilities, she is soundly defeated when Aldra unleashes her demon eye, sealing her in a block of magical amber which incapacitates her for most of the season. In a duel between Nanael and Airi, Nanael's holy milk spills on Melona's prison, weakening it and allowing her to crack and ooze her way free, taking one glance at the captured Menace before taking her leave. Melona finds Nanael and proposes a temporary alliance to defeat Aldra, although she secretly conspires to steal her milk in order to defeat Aldra. She succeeds in snatching it and sneaking away as Rana, who was staying with Airi early on when Cattelya was captured. At the penultimate episode, Melona once more confronts Aldra by ambushing her via surprise constriction, attempting to pour the milk on her, but is almost immediately repelled. She then summons demonic bats to eat away at her body, leaving her as a hand-sized lump of slime that quickly revives as a miniature Melona. However, this was a diversion as she had sent a piece of herself to dump the milk from above, scoring a direct hit. Having weakened her enough, Melona narrowly escapes as Aldra had aimed another blast at her, leaving her with half her small slime left. Ironically, this act helped her arch enemy, Leina later on in the fight. Melona appears in the OVA continuation as she is seen being tortured by the Swamp Witch as punishment for her past failures, summoning fakes of the Queen's Blade contestants to slash and impale her. She is later released however, but decides to finally defect from her former master, waiting for Airi to show up and convince her, although her attempts are denied by Airi's unconditional loyalty at first, but finally convinces her. In the following episode, Melona and Airi have been ordered by the Swamp Witch to bring back Menace within three days, who has restored her kingdom of Amara, becoming its princess in the process. After being led to her palace by a needy Ymir, Melona discovers Menace at peace and basking in the luxury of the royalty she commands. Despite Airi pressuring Menace to return, Melona is swayed by the worry-less life that Menace lives and decides to join her instead. She ignores Airi's commands, trying to at least convince her to enjoy this relaxing life. When the two decide to spar, Airi chimes in again and tries to place conditions on their fight, but it ends in a draw. Later that night, Airi reminds Melona what she had said the other day about not being loyal to the Swamp Witch. This eventually forces her hand and is forced to fight against Menace for fear of the Swamp Witch's wrath. With no choice but to fight, an intense battle ensues resulting in the destruction of the kingdom as their money had been spent alone on the castle gates. However, Menace's servants remain at her side to immediately begin reconstruction of Amara. Melona and Airi end up returning back to the swamp empty-handed. However, Melona remarks about noticing earlier that Menace's servants did not have symbols on their bodies and came to the conclusion they were simply masochists. In the following anime series, Queen's Blade Rebellion, Melona is seen as part of the new Queen Claudette's army. However she seems to have her own machinations this time. She first appears impersonating Ymir and makes off with the experimental Hyper Vibration Armor, a set of armor that produces intense, euphoric vibrations on sensitive areas of the body while at the same time increasing the wearer's strength. While she tries to make her escape, the real Ymir sends Mirim, another young girl wearing a similar set of armor to go after her. Melona decides to stick around while in Ymir's guise to test it. However, as the battle goes on, the vibrations noticeably take their toll on Melona's concentration, causing her shape to shift and distort periodically. When the two clash in a standoff, the hyper vibrating energies cause Melona to finally drop her guise as she succumbs to the vibrations, forcing her into a liquid form, but escapes. She then reveals later on that she plans to turn the continent into "a more interesting place". She appears in the following episode still in the guise of Ymir to confront the new Queen - Claudette's - enemies, Annelotte and her rebel allies, but when she is captured the forest warrior Luna Luna, she quickly drops her facade and liquefies to escape her grasp, diving into the surrounding water and enchanting it with dark magic to ensare Annelotte's allies. She then perches herself atop Claudette's throne. After some exposition, Claudette rises from her throne and prepares to do battle with her enemies with Melona ready to join in on the fight. However, Claudette seems to be bothered by Melona's presence and raises her sword against her and with a mighty swing, she is disintegrated by the blast. However, she managed to once again escape doom with a stray piece of her mass having taken on the form of a Mini-Melona and unfortunately encounters Ymir and her subordinates as they watch the climatic battle between Annelotte and Claudette. After the battle came to an end, Ymir captures Melona in a strange substance that although partially paralyzes her, leaves her unable to morph and is taken away by her. Gallery Normal Form File:Melonanormal.png File:Melonanormal2.png File:MiniMelona.png Shapeshifting Triva *Melona is one of the few characters to display the rare instance of bleeding as see in the third episode of the third season. Category:Characters Category:Anime characters Category:Manga characters Category:Video game characters